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Influence Of Information Sources On Farmers Knowledge And Usage Of Poultry Drugs
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Among which to be mentioned poultry contribute to GDP and GNP of the
country. Furthermore, poultry industry at the moment is bedeviled by
enormous problems. Among which are lack of government funding, lack of
credit facility, high cost of feeding ingredients, diseases, increasing
cost of medications, marketing and lack of storage facility. Diseases
are one of the major challenges to the industry, because of the economic
importance of the disease causing organisms like bacteria, virus,
fungal and protozoan, which poultry birds are susceptible to, bringing
about devastating effects to both the flocks and the farmers .For
instance, the outbreak of avian influenza otherwise known as bird flu,
in 2005/2006, led to death of over 1.5 million birds across the country
(Sahara reporter). It will be recalled that large number of poor farmers
lost their means of livelihood, when their flocks were destroyed by
government without compensation; yet foreign donor agencies are willing
to address the problem of avian influenza stated by (WHO, 2005) The
intake of protein in Nigeria stands at 3.5g per caput per day(Ironkwe
and Amefule,2008) and this is far less than the 35g per caput per day
recommended by the World Health Organization (W.H.O),this shortage of
animal protein consumption is partly due to the high cost of
conventional meat sources like cattle, goat, sheep(Tewe,1999),it is
therefore necessary to search for a cheaper alternative source of meat
to meet the ever increasing demand for animal protein. Information and
communication are essential ingredients needed for effective transfer of
technologies that are designed to boost agricultural production. For
farmers to benefit from such technologies they must first have access to
them and learn how to effectively utilize them in their farming systems
and practices (Ariyo et al.2013).This is the responsibility of
agricultural extension agencies all over the world. These extension
agencies make use of different approaches ,means and media in
transferring improved agricultural technologies to farmers. Mass media
methods in agricultural information dissemination generally, are useful
in reaching a wide audience at a very fast rate. They are useful sources
of agricultural information to farmers and as well constitute methods
of notifying farmers of new developments and emergencies. They could
equally be important in stimulating farmers’ interest in new ideas and
practices (Ani et al.1997). Common sources of agricultural information
sources that have been used are the extension services, radio,
television, magazines, newspaper and face to face communication.
According to Statrasts,(2004) this information sources is seen as an
institution or individuals that create or bring about message and the
characteristics of a good information source are relevance,
timelessness, accuracy, cost effectiveness reliability, usability
exhaustiveness and aggregation level. Lately research institutions have
embraced the modern sources of information such as internet especially
online database, journals and articles that have made information more
readily accessible, accurate and timely. These modern sources have been
used within research institutions and extension service units but their
effectiveness in availing information to farmers have been criticized.
It is thought that the modern sources of information have social,
education, economic, cultural and technical constraints which limits
their effectiveness in disseminating agricultural information to
farmers(Bashir,2008) It is important to disseminate agricultural
information to ensure farmers have adequate knowledge and skills to
address their needs and sustain production. Research institutions have a
responsibility of ensuring that the information they disseminate is
packaged in a way that makes it easy for the end-users to understand and
to use appropriate dissemination channels that would make the
information accessible to the end users (farmers),(Ghobrial and
Musa,2006). Hence, the information supply from extension, research.
Education and other sources has become managed by agricultural
organizations and especially disseminated to farmers so that they can
make better decisions to take advantages of market opportunities and to
manage continuous changes in their production systems(Demiryurek,2010)
According to Davin (1976) every individual whether literate or
non-literate needs information in order to make decisions thus every
sector of the population engaged in agriculture needs information. The
concept that information is the message has different meanings in
different contexts. Luciano Floridi (2010). Thus, the concept of
information becomes closely related to notions of constraint,
communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning,
understanding, mental stimuli, pattern, perception, representation, and
entropy. The role of communication boarder on it’s effectiveness which
is foundational to socio-economic and political development of a nation.
Adekunle and Ogoto (1994), asserted that effective communication is a
precondition for sustainable technology transfer in agriculture; and the
feed forward- feed back mechanisms which are essential ingredients in
the technology transfer process are only made possible through
communication process. A good communicator or information source knows
his audience, his wants, needs, message, the effective channel of
communication applicable to his audience, prepares his information to be
communicated carefully, speaks clearly, uses simple languages that
people understand and is aware of the limitation of time. The
credibility and technical competence of the communicator (extension
agent) will go a long way in people (farmers) putting their trust in him
as an authority of valid assertions and a reckoned officer. Hence
Torimiro and Akinyemiju (2008) opined that in order to maintain good
credibility extension agents need to have adequate knowledge and skill
in dealing with people, and that a message is not of no value unease it
is understood, accepted by the receiver and creates a motivation to act.
Ekumankma and Nwankwo (2002) observed the poor exposure of farmers to
appropriate agricultural information as one of the major reasons for low
yield recorded by many Nigerian farmers.
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ABSRACT - [ Total Page(s): 1 ]A nation’s capacity for industrialization and employment depends on her improvement in level of production enhanced by available information. This is necessary for promoting entrepreneurship in agricultural transformation agenda for food security and poverty alleviation in Nigeria. This study assessed the influence of information source on poultry farmers knowledge and usage of drugs in Edo and Delta States, Nigeria. A multi-stage sampling procedure was used to solicit response from 120 a ... Continue reading---
